If Dreams Came True
by Tsukare
Summary: Sarah was sure she had made it all up. But 10 years later, re-acquaintance with some old toys begin to make her doubt. "Can dreams have dreams, Sarah?" asks the Goblin King. But all she knows is that she's slowly going insane. J/S...of sorts.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I wasn't sure what genre to put this under, because I haven't decided if this will end happy or sad, or maybe a little of both. I'm in the midst of the last chapter (there will be 3 ...I think, haha). I'm not sure it would be accurate to place it under romance or angst although there will be elements of both. It's definitely not an upbeat tale.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing except the idea for this story, although it has probably been done many times over.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"_Goodbye, Sawah."_

_Startled, she quickly turned away from the mirror to seek out the reality of the reflection, but the great beast was nowhere in sight. Not a little confused, she slowly turned her gaze back to the mirror._

"_And remember fair maiden, should you need us…" The fox-like creature faded like a wishful dream, only to be replaced by the equally dream-like materialization of another dear friend._

"_Yes, should you need us," the dwarf repeated, slightly melancholy, "for, any reason at all…"_

"_I need you Hoggle," she said immediately in a timid voice. Her heart contracted painfully in her chest. _

"_Y-Yeh do?"_

"_I don't know why, but, every now and again in my life, for no reason at all, I need you. All of you."_

_The dwarf's eyes widened in surprise, face lighting up with pure glee. "Yeh _do_? Well, why didn't ya say so!"_

_And this time, when Sarah turned around they were there, all of them. All of her friends, including those for which she held questionable affection, burst out in cheer, party streamers, and dance. Her heart leapt at the sight and she dove into the merry fray to embrace first Hoggle, then Didymus, then the great creature Ludo. Then she went back to Hoggle, lifted him off his feet and spun him around in a circle. They were both grinning from ear to ear. Oh how she loved the feel of their furs and fabrics, the faint musk of animals and goblins! She loved the sound of their excited chatter and their valiant attempts to bawl out a semblance of a tune. These were her friends, and even though she had finally, finally acted out the concluding lines of "Labyrinth" with perfection, it did not mean the story was completely over. She would call on them every now and again, and they would answer, because they were her friends._

_Someone threw a goblin helmet in the air and Sarah laughingly hopped over the crowd to catch it, lest it fall and dent the floor. _

"_I'll catch it for thee, milady!" cried Sir Didymus, leaping onto her shoulder and stretching out his tiny paws. But the diameter of the helmet was at least half the entire height of her noble knight, and as soon as his paws clutched the rim, he pitched forward off her shoulder to land ungracefully on the floor. The helmet rolled away amid uproarious laughter and Sarah scooped him up with a sympathetic grin. _

"_You alright, Sir Didymus?"_

"_It takes more than a mere tumble to vanquish me, fair maiden," he scoffed, even while rubbing his back. "In fact, I—"_

_A soft, but firm sound suddenly ripped through the sounds of silly partying. It was jarring, terribly out of place, and Sarah's vision went out of focus for a good few seconds. The sound came again and she shook her head. Someone was knocking on her door. A brief flash of supreme ire flooded through her, but then disappeared almost as quickly as it had come._

"_Come in," she said simply._

_Her father opened the door a crack and peered in cautiously. He saw the usual disarray of toys scattered among numerous books, scraps of paper, and photos of which he rarely took a close look. Past experience had taught him better. He noted with curiosity that the vanity in front of the mirror was rather spartan compared to the last time he had seen it, but then girls were always rearranging their trinkets so he gave it little thought._

"_I just wanted to thank you for watching Toby tonight," he said, peering at his daughter. She was squatting on the floor with a stuffed toy that resembled a fox wearing an eye-patch. _

"_Yeah." She reached under her vanity to retrieve something that looked like a miniature plastic medieval helmet, and placed it on a rather strange-looking toy. Robert thought it might have been a goblin. He was shocked when his daughter looked up at him and smiled briefly. "I'm sorry about my behavior earlier. I was…a little snot. From now on, though, things will be different." She carefully placed the fox creature on her shelf and further astonished her father by walking up to him and placing a quick peck on his cheek. "Good night dad." She paused, then added, "Tell her I said good night too."_

_The expression of utter amazement on her father's face was the last thing Sarah saw as he nodded mutely, closing the door quietly behind him. Her eyes swept around the now screamingly silent room, its inhabitants no longer animated by her imagination. It was almost cruel how her latest and probably last enactment of a play had also contained the most vivid scenes she had ever entertained in her mind—she could still recall the absolute terror of fleeing from the whirling mass of blades in the tunnels. It was cruel because there had been very strange moments where she was sure she wouldn't have been able to break out of her imaginings, as if she hadn't been acting, and the world of "Labyrinth" was existent. It was cruel because this play had felt so real when with all others she had always been aware that she was acting, both her part and the parts of the other characters. Not so this time. This time—_

_Sarah sighed and flopped bonelessly onto her bed. This time, although she had terrifyingly lost the ability to distinguish reality from her imagination until the end, she had also learned that she couldn't live the life of her heroines on paper. Toby was real. And in a fantasy that had felt as if it just might have crossed over into actuality, losing him because of her childish selfishness was too horrifying to contemplate._

"_So cruel…" her lips shaped the words soundlessly. An image of a cold, arrogant, yet tormented countenance ghosted through her mind. Her eyes were suddenly prickling with a burning heat that brimmed and spilled over onto her cheeks, disappearing rapidly into her pillow. It was cruel because the wearer of that countenance had offered her everything she had ever wanted, and she suspected that if she had taken the crystal, she would have discovered that the past thirteen hours in the Labyrinth had not been a fantasy at all._

_But the price was Toby. She could not sacrifice an innocent child even for the possibility that her fantasies would be made real. Her watery eyes sought out the Goblin King figurine on her vanity—and saw nothing. For a minute she stopped breathing; she had not put the figure away as she had the musical miniature in a ball gown. Where—? _

_Then slowly, slowly her heart started beating again, and a shuddering laugh tore its way past her throat. It did not really matter where it went, did it? Whether its disappearance was a confirmation of her suspicions or not, the way to her dreams were as broken as the room in which she had rejected them. She had reality now, and it wasn't as if the thought was entirely unwelcome. For once she was sure she had done something substantial, something right. True, maybe her playacting of "Labyrinth" had not been an act at all, and maybe it had. She would probably never know if she had turned away from a fantasy that somehow might have been reality. It wasn't fair._

_Sarah closed her eyes and recalled the sight of her baby brother in contented sleep. She smiled softly. No, it wasn't fair._

_But that's the way it was._

_

* * *

_

Filtered sunlight through curtained windows elicited a groggy moan from the figure on the bed. Sarah rolled onto her back and gazed blearily at the wall, momentarily confused and disoriented. The wall was completely bare—what had happened to her shelves of stuffed toys, and the M.C. Escher poster that hung next to them? Then the muted sounds of Saturday morning cartoons drifted from beyond her bedroom door, reminding her that she was not in fact a 15-year old girl living in her parents' house. She was nearly a decade older, paying rent for a cozy little apartment, and currently babysitting Toby for a few days while her father and stepmother were redecorating their house. She placed a hand over her face and rubbed it wearily. This was the second or third time she'd had the dream since her parents had announced their plans to redecorate, likely due to the transitioning of some of her childhood toys from the house to her apartment. Sarah had boxed her toys nearly ten years ago and had not looked at them since. But now…

_Come on, they're just toys_, she thought irritably, pulling herself into a sitting position and scowling at the offending boxes. They sat innocently in a corner of her room. That they represented her last and most vivid foray into childish fantasy was hardly reason for them to plague her dreams…right?

Muttering under her breath, she shook her head and climbed out of bed to get dressed. "They're just toys," she repeated. But a glance in a mirror plainly reflected the uneasy shadows that flitted behind her troubled green eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I miiight make this a 4 part story. The last chapter may need splitting.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. :(

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Toby, breakfast," Sarah called. When there was no reply except for the incessant chatter of cartoons, she poked her head out of the kitchen and said, "Come on, Tobe, time to eat."

"Aw, can't I eat in here?"

"No, I let you do that yesterday and you spilled juice on the carpet. You can watch more cartoons after breakfast."

"Aw, okaaay," was the childishly aggrieved reply.

Sarah set plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast on the table, smiling when her little brother let out a whoop of glee at the sight. He loved bacon but his mother did not, so it was a rare occasion when he was able to eat the stuff. "Don't forget to drink your milk," Sarah said, as she approached her food in a somewhat more dignified manner.

Toby rolled his eyes. "I know, I know. I'm not a _baby_ anymore."

His sister grinned. "All grown up, are you?"

"Yup! Mum says I get to have a whole new room soon. They're going to knock down the wall between your room and the other one, BAM" he waved his arms expansively "to make a huge one, just for me." Then he looked stricken. "But only if you're okay with it."

Sarah laughed at his expression. He was such a sweet boy; their parents had not asked for her opinion about their project, but Toby would truly fight them if he thought it would make her sad. "Don't worry about it, Tobe. A bigger room means that you can put a whole lot more stuff in there. It'll be easier to hide your mess when your mom orders you to clean up." She winked conspiratorially, and Toby snickered in delight.

But if they were converting her room, Sarah mused as she finished breakfast and Toby went back to his cartoons, they would probably want her to remove more of her things. Probably everything. There was some amount of bitterness at the thought, but she shrugged it off in annoyance, pinning up her long, dark hair and setting about her weekend chores.

* * *

"_Give me the child." Her voice was soft, pleading. Clothed in a white stage dress and a beautiful headband of flowers adorning her hair, she began to walk forward, her voice growing in confidence with each step. "Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered—I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City," she spread her arms and swept her gaze imperiously over the landscape, "to take back the child that you have stolen."_

_She advanced slowly, inexorably toward the barn owl that had found perch on a nearby post. "For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great!" Thunder growled above as she tried to remember the last line. "For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great…" she muttered, staring hard at the ground. Why was it so difficult to remember that line? "Damn." She reached into her sleeve intending to retrieve the book, when the sound of the wind was broken by another voice. Mocking._

"_You don't need that book anymore, do you, Sarah?" _

_Her hands dropped and she gasped, eyes widening in horror as she realized what was happening. _Oh my god, the barn owl— _She could hear the swish of booted footsteps on grass, stalking toward her with deliberate ease._

"_That line has been forever engraved into your heart, hasn't it? Just. Like. M—"_

Sarah let out a strangled scream as her eyes flew open to meet the wide, anxious ones of her little brother. She clutched a hand to her chest and tried to calm the frantic thudding of her heart.

"Are you alright, Sarah?" Toby asked, wide-eyed and frightened.

Sarah managed a shaky smile. "Y-Yeah. Just a bad dream. It's a good thing you're here to protect me, right?" She felt a measure of relief when the fear leaked away from Toby's face.

"Yeah, I'll always protect you, Sarah."

The innocent determination she heard in that simple utterance nearly brought her to tears. _Oh Toby. I don't think you can protect your sister from her own madness. _She had only closed her eyes for a short afternoon nap when the dream had besieged her. Were these dreams simply a product of seeing her old toys again, or was she beginning to lose her mind? This was the very reason she had put the toys away and shut the door on her fantastic imagination ten years ago; the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality is what separated the sane from the insane. And she was terrified that she was quite possibly going insane.

"You're going to take me to the store, right?" Toby asked gamely. Sarah had promised to buy him a new puzzle book if he behaved while she went grocery shopping.

"That's right. We'd better get going before it gets too late."

Before they were able to leave, however, their father called. "Hey dad, how is the redecoration coming along?"

"It's going great!" he replied enthusiastically. "Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. Since we're also planning to remodel your old room for Toby, I was wondering if you'd like to stay the night sometime this week? Just to see your room one last time," he laughed. "For old time's sake."

_And then cart everything I own out of there_, Sarah thought dryly. She tried to suppress a shiver at the thought of seeing the empty shelves that her stuffed toys used to occupy. She wouldn't have much left to take—whatever books she hadn't given to Toby, some photo albums, and the contents of her vanity drawers. She beat down another shiver at the vision of _that_ drawer.

"No thank you. Once I deliver the little monster back to you, I'm going back to work." Sarah grinned at Toby's indignant expression. "I'll evacuate all of my property when I drop him off."

"Oh honey, you don't need to do that," he replied, but Sarah could hear the slight relief in his voice. He had probably had an argument with his wife about the issue.

They chatted for a few more minutes until Toby's impatient pointing at the clock ended their brief conversation, and Sarah made a quick pass through the apartment to check that everything was in order. Her gaze lingered fleetingly on the boxed up toys before resolutely turning her back on them. So maybe they had resurrected some unwanted dreams—but that was all they were: dreams. _Nothing more. _

_

* * *

_Sarah was perturbed when Toby picked out a book full of _mazes_. She had never realized that he had developed an interest in solving labyrinthine puzzles.

"I like the ones where the goal is to get to the center," he said, once they were back in her living room. "They always put something in the center, like a treasure chest! It's a lot more fun than just leaving after trying so hard to get out. But those are fun too." He flipped through the book in search of a "get-to-the-center" maze, oblivious to the fact that Sarah was regarding him very strangely.

"The center of the Labyrinth?" she said faintly.

Toby frowned at her peculiar phrasing as he settled on one of the puzzles. "Yeah, I guess. Sometimes I pretend there's a really scary monster in the middle, and I have to go into the maze to fight it. And when I make a wrong turn, it's because the big monster has bad little monsters that trick—"

"There are no such things as 'big monsters' and 'little monsters' in the Labyrinth," Sarah interrupted sharply. She immediately regretted the harshness of her tone when the young boy looked up in surprise.

After a short silence, he replied quietly, "Sorry. I was only pretending…"

Sarah sighed and went over to wrap her arms around him in apology. "No, it's alright, Toby. I shouldn't have spoken that way. I just don't want your imagination to get too carried away, alright?"

"Alright," he said doubtfully.

Sarah berated herself internally as she returned to her bedroom. She glanced at the boxes and resisted the urge to deliver them a vicious kick. It wasn't _Toby's_ imagination that was in danger of getting too carried away. And it was affecting her behavior in reality, just as she had always feared it would. As much as she dreaded confronting her old room and all the memories they contained, she resolved to go through every inch of it until she proved to herself once and for all that what had happened ten years ago had simply been an extremely vivid, but ultimately imaginary dream. Perhaps she would even take up her father's offer after all and spend a night there. _Because it _was_ just a dream_, she thought firmly. The problem was that at 15 years old, she had slammed the door on her heart—but its innermost walls had never stopped whispering that maybe, just maybe, it hadn't been a dream at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I've decided to split the last part since it is currently running about twice as long as the previous chapters. So here's the penultimate. :)

**Disclaimer: **I still own nothing. :(

* * *

**Chapter 3**

"Wooah, all the flowers are gone!" Toby exclaimed, turning around and around in the newly wallpapered foyer. The floral beige print had been replaced by abstract shapes in whites and light grays, and the carpets were several shades darker than the walls. Sarah personally found the monochrome theme bland and uninspiring, but she supposed that in a way it matched her father and step-mother's personalities. They were very sensible people.

After the initial flurry of "welcome homes" and hugs and "how have you beens", Toby rushed into the kitchen where his mother was preparing the dinner salad, and Robert left on an errand. This left Sarah standing at the foot of the staircase, gazing up at the entryway to the hall that would lead to her old room. They told her that aside from the occasional vacuuming and sheet-washing, it had remained untouched since she had moved out. She gripped the strap of her overnight shoulder pack and tried to ignore the anxiety that suddenly shot through her veins.

_I can do this,_ she thought, taking a step with each word. _I. _Step. _Am. _Step. _Completely._ Step. _Sane._ She felt her confidence increase with each determined footfall, until she was standing in front of her door. It was slightly ajar. Sarah inhaled and pushed it all the way open.

"Normal," she whispered, breathing out ever so slowly. She flipped on the lights and deposited her pack on the bed, scanning the walls, the shelves, the vanity. Her post-Labyrinth experience saw the taking down of most of her wall decorations and the organization of her terrible clutter. The room was fairly spartan save for a few children's books intermingled with the novels she'd read in high school. A scattering of trinkets still decorated the top of her vanity, covered with a layer of dust. The wall unit that had housed her stuffed toys appeared forlorn in its emptiness. Sarah gave a little laugh. What had she been so afraid of? It was a child's room that had accommodated an adult for a short period of time. Soon it would return to being a child's haven, albeit one that would probably be less bizarre than it had been for its previous occupant.

Sarah reluctantly sat down at her vanity. Her reflection stared warily back at her, but that was all—no giant, red-furred beast, no fox-like creature, no melancholy dwarf magically appeared on her bed. _That's because you haven't said your right words_. She froze as the thought popped unbidden into her head. No, she was _not_ going to "say her right words". It would only serve to put a crack in the prison to that part of herself she had tried so hard to lock away. _But isn't this what you came here for? To prove that it was all a bunch of nonsense?_

Her hand hovered over the knob of the vanity's right-hand drawer. Then she glanced at her open door and decided to shut it before someone came and witnessed her descent into madness. When she returned to the vanity, she realized her hands were shaking.

"This is stupid!" she hissed at herself. "How old are you, anyway?" She steeled herself for the sight that would greet her—it wasn't as if she could deny remembering every little detail—and jerked open the drawer.

All the breath went out of her. _This isn't happening._ The little musical gazebo with the doll inside was not there. The photos of her mother, scraps of notepaper, and even the thin red volume with the title "The Labyrinth" were there, just as she'd left them. But the musical figurine was gone.

"There's a reasonable explanation for this," she whispered, as a wave of feverish heat swept through her. But that locked-away part of her knew there wasn't. She had never been able to find the miniature Goblin King statue that had disappeared a decade ago.

_Say your right words._

"This isn't happening." Sarah clutched the sides of her head in frustration.

_Say your right words._

She stared at the red book lying oh so innocently at the bottom of the drawer. Suddenly she snatched it up angrily and snarled, "So what? So what if it _was_ real? It doesn't change anything!" …_But the King of the goblins had fallen in love with the girl…_

Sarah closed her eyes and dropped the book back into the drawer. And so what if he had? Even if she were to do it all over again, she would still reject him for Toby. No matter what she might have felt for the Goblin King…

"I am not," she bit out harshly, "in love with a figment of my imagination!" She curled her hands into fists as she stared at herself trembling in the mirror. Two items that were very dear to her childhood had vanished without explanation, and Toby! When and where the _hell_ had he developed a love of labyrinths with a center, with deceitful creatures roaming its walls? And let's not forget about the dreams, Sarah thought bitterly. Was all of this real, or was she still stuck in a fantasy of her own making? Maybe there really was a reasonable explanation for everything but—heaven help her—the part of her that wanted, _still_ believed in the reality of the Labyrinth and its inhabitants was blinding her to it.

"Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be," she said in a soft, singsong manner, "I know you don't exist in reality." Even without seeing her reflection, she knew she looked utterly insane.

_Say your right words._

"I wish…" Her breath caught. It had been such a long time since she had spoken that phrase. "I wish the Goblin King…" she faltered. _I wish the Goblin King, what?_ Supposing he really did exist, what could she possibly expect from him _now?_ "…would show me the truth. I wish the Goblin King would show me the truth. Right now."

Sarah waited in tense silence for one beat, then two. Then a string of beats passed. But nothing happened.

"So it _was_ just a dream," she laughed finally, tiredly. "God, I am such an idiot." And just like that, the locked-away part of herself curled in on itself and evaporated into nothing. Once practicality set in, she was able to regard her recent lapse in sanity through an adult's jaded eyes. She was forced to admit that some dark, secret part of her had been in love, no, _infatuated_ with a construct of her 15-year old mind, and that was the reason she had never "said her right words" until now, or called upon her "friends" after that fateful night. For nearly ten years the part of her that held on to the fantasy had been too afraid that the world of Labyrinth was only a dream after all. And it was.

"At least you can move on with your life," she sighed, regretfully recalling her past few, but unsuccessful relationships. _All because of your ridiculous imagination._

Sarah ran a hand through her hair and decided to head downstairs. Dinner would be ready soon, and she craved the sense of normalcy that her family's company would bring. As she reached for the door, however, she experienced a disturbing flash of déjà vu. Almost in a detached manner she turned the knob, heard the click of the latch, and then—

"Better to stay in here, dear," a voice drawled. But this time it didn't belong to a collector of junk.

Sarah's jaw dropped in speechless dismay as her eyes travelled first from the boots, to the breeches, to the armor, to the high collar of the sweeping black cloak—and finally, to the unchanged, mocking face of the Goblin King.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything Labyrinth-related.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

She whipped around and stumbled backwards at the sight that greeted her. She was no longer in her room; the scenery before her was bleak and dotted with skeletal trees, patches of parched grass, and crumbling stone. When she turned back, the Goblin King was not lounging against her doorframe, but rather, against a post that looked suspiciously like the one a certain barn owl had perched on in a greener landscape. Behind him loomed the forbidding outer walls of the Labyrinth.

"What have you done?" she demanded, unsuccessfully trying to squelch the fear in her voice.

"What have _I_ done?" A corner of his mouth curled up sardonically. He waved an arm carelessly at their surroundings. "This is what you wished for, isn't it?"

Sarah gaped. "Then…this is all…real?"

"I don't know. Is it?"

Sarah's mouth snapped shut as she stared at the figure before her. He was attired entirely in black except for where the dusky light hinted at strange colors in his cloak, much like when she saw—or at least imagined—him for the first time. His ash-blond hair was still choppy and wild, giving him that wolfish appearance. But his exotic eyes, one blue, one nearly eclipsed by the pupil, were veiled. He was mocking her, and she felt the stirrings of anger seep into her fear.

"I wished for you to tell me the truth about whether my time in the Labyrinth was real or not," she snapped. "I didn't ask for games."

"That is not what I heard," he retorted, peeling away from the post to stalk toward her. "You wished for the Goblin King to show you the 'truth', and that is what he is doing. You didn't articulate the nature of the 'truth' you wanted, so you are seeing 'truth' in the broadest sense that it applies to you."

Sarah, who had taken a step back for every step he took forward, stopped. "What do you mean?"

"Oh come, now, Sarah, do I really need to spell it out for you?"

"Maybe if you stopped speaking in riddles, you wouldn't have to!"

"I am only speaking according to the script I was given."

Sarah digested his words, and an ill feeling rose in the pit of her stomach. "What script?"

The Goblin King's smile was acidic. "If you don't know the answer to that, you're a lot duller than I remember, little girl."

Sarah felt her shoulders slump. She closed her eyes. "So it really is just a dream," she whispered. The truth was that she had longed to return to this place ever since she had left it, even if only in some terribly realistic hallucination as it was when she ran the Labyrinth for Toby. She _wanted_ the Labyrinth to be real, including its ruler, embittered or not. Perhaps her imagination was casting him in a cruel role out of guilt for what she had done to him when she was 15-years old…_but the whole damn thing was my imagination anyway! Why should I feel guilty about an imaginary character?_

"Imaginary characters can't feel."

"Can't they?"

His voice was a silken caress, and it was close, too close. Sarah's eyes snapped open and she hastily retreated back a ways. Up close he was too…much. She wanted to touch him.

She shook her head. "No, they can't. Like you said, you follow the script you were given. Back then, everything that happened happened because I wanted it to. I wanted my 'toys and my costumes' to come to life, and they did. I wanted friends, I wanted adventure. I wanted a villain to vanquish, and you gave that to me, because I wanted you to. Don't you remember, Goblin King? 'Everything I've done, I've done for you'?" She saw a spark of anger light his strange eyes, but she pressed on ruthlessly. "You were _very_ generous. You gave me everything I wanted, because I wanted you to! Even the anger you feel right now is because I want you to be angry with me, because I want to deny that you're just my imagination talking to me."

The Goblin King paused in his leisurely prowl to stare disbelievingly at her. Then he threw back his head and laughed. "Oh Sarah, Sarah, perhaps you haven't changed as much as I'd thought." He continued to stalk her; they were moving in slow circles now, predator and prey trying to gauge when the other would strike or flee. "Do you realize what you've just said? The anger I _feel?_ I thought I was an imaginary character."

"You are," she said, but there was a hint of uncertainty.

"Am I?" he replied sharply. His eyes glittered dangerously. "Then what are you running away from? If I am only a dream, make me disappear, Sarah. Make this all disappear."

Sarah's retreat faltered. There was something strange in his voice, although she couldn't put her finger on it. But what he said rang true—unlike the last time she was here, she was fully aware that she could wake from her hallucination if she wanted to. As soon as she had the realization, she glanced up at the walls of the Labyrinth to see the entire scene begin to blur and lose shape, and she could vaguely make out the lines of the wall-shelving and books in her old room. In some terribly bizarre way it was like seeing two images in the process of being superimposed on each other, but which was on top and which was behind, she couldn't tell.

"It seems I've underestimated you again."

Sarah was startled at the proximity of his voice, and the scene before her warped and solidified into the Labyrinth walls once more. She whirled to face him in surprise. "What?"

"Still so clueless and yet so powerful," he murmured, looking down at her. His face was a stony mask. Almost as if to himself, he added, "Such a selfish little girl."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "I'm not a little girl anymore, Goblin K—"

"My name is Jareth," he interjected vehemently.

Sarah felt a pressure beginning to build at the back of her head. "You're not even real!" The landscape shimmered.

"Oh, I'm not?" He raised a gloved hand to her face, and she jerked away. The landscape stilled. He gave her a sharp smile.

"What," she swallowed. "What is going on, Goblin King?"

The Goblin King tilted his head. "Don't you know? This is _your_ dream, isn't it?"

"Yes. It is," she said through her teeth. "But you're preventing me from leaving, somehow."

He spread his hands innocently. "I'm just an imaginary creature. I have, one might say, no power over you."

Sarah resisted the urge to scream. "Stop toying with me!"

"Who is toying with whom?" The mask cracked and suddenly the Goblin King's face was a picture of rage. He advanced on her so quickly that in her frightened rush to get away, she tripped and fell hard on her backside. He made no move to help her, but towered over her like an angry black wraith. "You wanted me to show you the truth, Sarah? Look!" He gestured in a manner that encompassed the whole of their surroundings. "This is the truth! This space, the Labyrinth and myself exists, but only _when_ you believe it."

Sarah stared up at him uncomprehendingly.

"For as long as I can remember, I have been dreamed in and out of _consciousness_ by your kind; children read the book, daydream about it, and then forget it. My self-awareness is subject to the dreamer's mind, for I am a creature of fantasy, and if no one thinks of me I simply don't exist. I was just an idea, a _dream_ that was dreamed about so frequently that I'd come to develop a mind of my own."

"But how—"

He held up a hand and she fell silent. "My self-awareness shouldn't have mattered. I am only one among many _dreams_ that you mortals birthed consciousness into. But never, never until you did I possess _feelings._ Always before, I was given a role to play but the dreamers never believed me separate from them. The Labyrinth was merely a temporary playground, and its creatures—poor bastards—were never thought of long enough to become self-aware. But you! You brought the Labyrinth to life. Every single creature you imagined suddenly acquired a history and a personality. They acquired the ability to _feel._ Every single one of them became aware of their place within your fantasy."

Sarah sat frozen in wonder as a crystal sphere materialized in his hand. He let it roll off his fingertips and fall, only to float serenely before her eyes. Her heart contracted when it showed her a certain dwarf foraging around the lush foliage of the hedge-maze.

"Hoggle," she whispered. The image morphed into a scene of a forest, where she saw her noble knight on his furry steed, followed by an enormous red-furred beast tramping among the trees. The image morphed yet again, and she realized with amazement that she was looking in on the throne room of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City. It was teeming with goblins. "Even the goblins?"

"Yes, Sarah." The Goblin King crouched down to her level and plucked the sphere from the air. He gazed into it for a second and looked vaguely surprised when it vanished from his hand. When he looked at her again, the anger seemed to have drained from his face, leaving in its place resigned weariness. "While you were running the Labyrinth, your belief in the reality of your dream was so strong that for a time, we were almost real."

"Almost?"

"Concern for your baby brother stopped you from fully accepting that dream as a reality. I could see it in your eyes."

Sarah felt her throat constricting as understanding began to dawn on her. _Your eyes can be so cruel…_ The Goblin King was an entity whose consciousness fazed in and out on the whims of dreamers' fantasies, his kingdom always changing, and his subjects only temporary company that would be replaced by another set of strangers in the next dreamer's dream. Then she had changed everything. She had given him the ability to feel, and thus realize the bleakness of his pseudo-existence. She had given him hope that someone would finally bring him into true reality—but in the end he had seen that she would not, could not grant him that, and she would leave him chained to the near-existence she had brought him to.

_Live without the sunlight…_

It was an appallingly lonely thought.

"I was so close," the Goblin King murmured, leaning toward her. She let him hover over her until their faces were almost touching. She bit her lip when she realized she could not feel his breath on her cheek, or the warmth one would expect from being so near to another living being. "So close."

_Love without your heartbeat…_

Her heart ached as she reached out to touch his face, only to see her fingers pass through it, as if he consisted of no more than fairy dust. The sky and the ground wavered and faded, then solidified, then began to fade again. _Oh god, what have I done to you?_ A lump formed in her throat.

"I couldn't," she managed to say in an anguished whisper. "You would have turned Toby into a goblin."

"That was the script I was given," he replied tiredly.

"I couldn't make that Toby's reality." Her voice broke. "It was his reality or yours, Goblin King."

He turned away from her and stood up, surveying the distorted landscape. It was the Labyrinth, and it was not; it was a girl's room, and it was not. It was the impasse between belief and disbelief in what should have been a simple fairytale. After a while he said almost too quietly for her to hear, "Say my name, Sarah."

She shook her head, trying to keep her heart from splitting. The script of her dreams had condemned this world to fantasy the second she declared it had no hold on her. And now that she had seen the truth of things, she would never be able to return. "It's too late."

A self-mocking smile played at the Goblin King's lips. "I know," he said simply.

_Oh god._ Sarah's face crumpled, and she could hear herself screaming wordlessly inside. It wasn't fair. He'd never been given a chance, if only she'd found another way into the Labyrinth, if only she hadn't imagined them with _feelings_, if only it could have worked out differently, if only it didn't hurt so much, if only dreams came true. She was crying now, the back of her hand pressed tightly against her mouth as if she could push the silent sobs back into her body.

The Goblin King kneeled before her and tried to brush the tears away in vain. He made a sound of frustration when his fingers passed through her as hers had done to him. "Sarah—"

She heard the note of distress and cried even harder, her body shaking with the effort to contain her grief.

"Can't you do something?" she choked out, reaching futilely for his hands at her cheeks. "You're the Goblin King."

"Sarah, I don't exist." He stared at her helplessly.

Sarah bowed her head and let the tears fall into the withered grass. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Jareth."

* * *

His eyes widened fractionally when his name fell from her lips. _She said my name._ For one dizzying moment Jareth felt a surge of euphoria, but as he gazed upon the miserable woman before him, it petered into sadness. _Don't cry anymore, Sarah. If you're going to say my name, at least say it with some joy._

He tried to put a hand under her chin but she was like a ghost. Or was it he who was the ghost? Jareth felt resignation begin to take hold within Sarah, and an all too familiar sensation of numbness began to creep into his mind. _Not yet. Don't push me out yet._

Jareth sensed the presence of the Labyrinth receding, and the fabric of his world wobbled. The walls of Sarah's old bedroom were becoming more apparent.

"I wish I could touch you," he sighed.

* * *

She was startled by a sudden warmth under her chin—it felt like—gloved fingers. She looked up and saw her astonishment reflected in Jareth's face. Before she could open her mouth, she was being pulled up and against him in a solid embrace, his cloak enveloping them both.

"What's going on?" she asked hoarsely.

Jareth was silent for a beat, choosing instead to relish the feel of her warmth within his arms. How he had yearned, _dreamed_ to do this just once more before he faded out of consciousness again. He laughed softly. "Can dreams have dreams, Sarah?"

She pulled back just enough to peer up at him. "Is this your dream?"

He brushed a thumb over the tear-tracks on her cheek and smiled crookedly. "Perhaps a small part of it."

Sarah rested her head beneath his chin and closed her eyes. So that was why he was still here, seemingly as warm and as real as any living being might be. Even though she knew it was just a transient wish, perhaps Jareth's dreams were so strong that they were sustaining the fantasy for just a little longer.

"Dance with me," he whispered.

Sarah blinked away the remnants of tears as he led her into the opening steps of a slow sequence. They danced without music, across the strange not-Labyrinth-but-not-reality landscape, across sand and carpet, around desks and bare trees. At some point the surroundings changed, and Sarah didn't know where they were, or if their feet were even touching a surface. When she wasn't staring transfixed into Jareth's extraordinary eyes, she would sometimes glimpse an ocean below them, or city skyscrapers, or a heaven with five moons. Sometimes she saw things to which she couldn't give a name. It was as if they had transcended time and space and were making a languid journey through the universe.

"Jareth," she said once.

"Hm?"

"What happened to the miniature statue of the Goblin King, and the musical figurine I used to own?"

Jareth looked puzzled. "I don't know. Are they missing?"

"Yeah."

He angled his head, bemused. "You haven't wished away anything to my side of reality in ten years."

"I…see." She resumed her silence and decided to worry about the matter when she returned to real life.

They danced over, under, and through countless landscapes both familiar and strange. They might have passed through the dreams of humans or faeries or of some creature unknown to either of them. They dipped, turned, and circled slowly together, their bodies moving in fluid synchronization. Sarah thought they might have been dancing for days; it didn't matter. Time seemed inconsequential.

But she could tell when the dream began to end. Their steps slowed, and the presence that encircled her gradually grew lighter, more transparent. She squeezed her eyes tightly as if to block out the sight of her Goblin King fading, and gripped his hands in a desperate attempt to keep the feel of him against her skin. His fingers squeezed hers in response.

"Sarah," he said gently.

She knew without looking that they had returned to the entrance of the Labyrinth.

"What if dreams came true?" she asked inaudibly, without opening her eyes.

She felt him shift—and a single tear spilled down her cheek when his lips pressed faintly against hers.

"We'd be dancing," he whispered.

And then he was gone. When Sarah opened her eyes, she was standing in the doorway of her room, the sound of Toby's laughter drifting up to her from downstairs. She glanced back toward the vanity at the spot where the Goblin King statue used to stand, and then at the empty space in the drawer.

_Maybe we still are,_ she thought with a ghost of a smile. She closed the door softly behind her.

* * *

Somewhere in a place not bound by time and space, in a place where dreams are born and dormant dreams lie, there was a single crystal sphere. It was such a small little thing that floated among an infinity of other what-ifs, what-might-have-beens, and things-that-may-come-to-be. Yet it shone brightly with the light of many dreams.

The crystal wasn't something that could be touched by hands. But if you could turn it a certain way, and look into it—it would show you the figures of a certain woman and a certain man, dancing their way across the stars.

* * *

...

...

**A/N:** ...........I'm still not sure what genre to put this under, but it ended more...hopeful, I guess, than I had originally planned. x_x; Anyway, I'd love to know your thoughts on the story. Thanks for reading!


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